Tenants: Bushwick Landlord Tears out Kitchens, Bathrooms to Get Tenants to Move
Jan 2014The landlord of a multifamily building 98 Linden Street in Bushwick removed the kitchens and baths in two rent-stabilized apartments “under the pretext that he was renovating the apartments” seven months ago and left them that way to try to force the tenants to move so he can increase the rent on the apartments, according to a story in the Brooklyn Bureau. The tenants have been using neighbors’ kitchens and bathrooms since then.
A child living in one of the units came down with pneumonia, “which was exacerbated by the horrible condition” of the apartment. Two tenants are elderly with arthritis and kidney problems, which require drinking a lot of water, accessible only via stairs in a neighbor’s apartment.
The tenants have appealed to the DOB, HPD, and gone to court, but the conditions have not changed, the story said. They have not moved because rents elsewhere are unaffordable. Tenants rights groups held a rally outside the landlord’s house in Borough Park last week.
The multifamily building, pictured above, traded between LLCs for $610,000 in January 2013, according to PropertyShark.
Effort to Remove Landlord Who Made Units Unlivable
April, 2014Officials with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced on Wednesday that they had gone to the city’s Housing Court seeking to remove the landlord, Joel Israel, from managing a six-unit, rent-stabilized building in Bushwick, and to have the court appoint an independent administrator for the property.
The department had already sued the landlord over numerous violations at the building, at 98 Linden Street, but the most recent action is a more aggressive tactic to access city and federal money for repairs and to bring relief to the tenants almost a year after their basic services were destroyed.
Also this week, a state tenant protection unit served a broader subpoena on JBI Management, a company whose principals are Joel and Aaron Israel, to produce documents related to rent rolls and business practices for the 10 buildings they own in the Bushwick, Greenpoint and William*****urg sections of Brooklyn, the governor’s office announced on Wednesday.
Tenants in at least four of the buildings have complained of actions taken by the landlord to create hazardous conditions and render their units unlivable under the guise of undertaking repairs, state officials said.
In some cases, the officials said, families with young children and elderly members were forced to move to a homeless shelter; in others, the landlord engaged in intimidation tactics, including locking out some tenants.
The district attorney’s office in Brooklyn was also investigating the cases, a spokeswoman for the office said.
Housing advocates and city officials who have rallied behind the tenants and pressed for more aggressive action over the last months argue that strong-arm tactics are typical in gentrifying areas of the city where unscrupulous landlords seek to evict longtime tenants to renovate the units and charge higher rents. But the destruction at 98 Linden Street, a case explored in The New York Times in February, stands out for its brazenness.
Last summer, JBI Management sent a letter asking tenants for access to their units to make some necessary repairs. Soon after, the tenants of two ground-floor apartments said, a worker showed up at their front door with a sledgehammer and gutted their kitchens and bathrooms, taking down a wall that divided the apartments in the process.
The two families have lived in the building for decades and each pay under $800 in rent. They are still waiting to resolve their case against the landlord in Housing Court, relying on relatives in the building for cooking and bathroom needs.
“It’s not only unconscionable but it is flat-out illegal for any landlord to subject families to living without running water or a functioning bathroom or kitchen,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement.
The city’s housing commissioner, Vicki L. Been, said the landlord has refused to make any repairs and has blocked city access to the building several times.
“We are pursuing an aggressive legal strategy to either remove him from managing the building or to force him to fix it,” she said in a statement.
Such removals of landlords from control of of their property are rare, city officials said, and are pursued only in the most extreme of cases. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development estimates the cost to rehabilitate 98 Linden at $524,000.A spokesman for the department said the city is asking the court to order the landlord to pay for the construction work. If that does not happen, the spokesman said, the city would seek federal funding or pay for the work itself and then seek repayment from the landlord. But it could take many years for the city to recoup the money in such cases.
Mr. Israel, who also runs his buildings under Linden Ventures L.L.C., has argued in Housing Court that he found structural problems when he bought 98 Linden in early 2013. He said the tenants have refused his offers for other accommodations as he has tried to rehabilitate the building.
On Wednesday, the lawyer for JBI Management, Glenn H. Spiegel, said in a statement:
“Our independent engineer warned JBI Management that there are structural defects which must be corrected — and that this essential work can only be done safely if the apartment is temporarily vacated. We are prepared to do that work but have also been blocked from doing so since the tenants refuse to temporarily vacate.”
But the landlord has given no estimate of the time it would take to restore basic services, state officials said. And the tenants do not trust they would be allowed back into their homes if they left.
Brent Meltzer, a lawyer with South Brooklyn Legal Services representing the tenants in Housing Court, said his clients were holding on and excited that relief was in sight. “They’re tough people,” he said, “but they want their kitchens and bathrooms back.”
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